If this is what it’s gonna be like, movies, you can stop appealing to my demographic thankyouverymuch. Between While We’re Young and This Is 40, I feel suicidal. Next time, stop trying to describe me and go ahead and make a raunchy teen comedy, capisce? I don’t like being represented by Ben Stiller even at his most likeable, and this ain’t it.
And what is it about Ben Stiller that he can give so much more depth to the personification of his mid-life crisis than he can to most of his characters? Josh (Stiller) is a crappy documentarian. Ten years into his latest project, he has no funding and can’t pay his editor. He has 6 ½ hours of footage no sane man would pay money to watch and somehow has the nerve to wonder how he has neither money, nor prospects. He does have Naomi Watts for a wife, which should be good enough for any man. But this isn’t any man, it’s Ben Stiller, a man who could look annoyed on “Ben Stiller Day” at Disneyland. And it’s Noah Baumbach, who loves to tread the line between entertainment and angst.
Enter Jamie (Adam Driver) and Darby (Amanda Seyfried), twentysomethings without an ounce of integrity or depth. Naturally, Jamie is a documentary filmmaker, too. And he’s the kind of hipster I can’t mock enough these days. But Josh is smitten. One whiff of twentysomething freedom and irresponsibility and *poof* I want to lack integrity and depth, too!
Like sycophantic pets, Josh and Cornelia (Watts) start following Jamie and Darby around and partaking in their lives of anti-technology, hip-hop-ercize and cult crap. Josh even starts adopting Jamie’s look, down to the douche-y Rat Pack hat. Damn, I don’t know hats. It’s not a pork pie and it’s not a fedora. You know what it is? It’s a dog collar. It’s a crown of obsequiousness, because every time Josh wears it, he’s announcing to the world how much of a Jamie-wannabe he is. It is particularly pathetic given his age and profession. Was there a time in the past decade or two that your backbone just gave up, hung out a “space to let” sign and crawled
painfully away, wallowing in self-pity from lack of use? Because that’s exactly what this is.
Funny thing is, this is Noah Baumbach, which means there is merit here. There might even have been the seeds of a good film. That all got tossed out the window when he introduces the conspiracy angle. I’d love to give it away because it was hideously wrong in both tone and plot (not to mention once again isolating Stiller both on screen and from our perspective – how many times, Ben? How many times are you gonna play the “I’m deliberately undermining your potential enjoyment of my character with a stupid self-invented crisis” card? Until it works?), but I shan’t just in case you want to experience this mystery hamfistedness on your own. You’ve been warned.
Though younger role model, does Ben,
A director in crisis find zen
Documentary, huh?
I got one for ya —
“Avid film fan pans Stiller, again”
Rated R, 97 Minutes
D: Noah Baumbach
W: Noah Baumbach
Genre: Putting an end to fortysomething happiness
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: People who secretly covet hipster life
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: People who have real mid-life crises
